- Integrating – Win-Win Solution (high concern for self and others) style involves openness, exchange of information, and examination of differences to reach an effective solution acceptable to both parties. It is associated with problem solving, which may lead to creative solutions.
- Obliging – Lose-Win (low concern for self and high concern for others) style is associated with attempting to play down the differences and emphasizing commonalities to satisfy the concern of the other party.
- Dominating – Win-Lose (high concern for self and low concern for others) style with forcing behavior to win one's position.
- Avoiding - Lose-Lose (low concern for self and others) style has been associated with withdrawal, buck-passing, or sidestepping situations.
- Compromising (intermediate in concern for self and others) style involves give-and-take whereby both parties give up something to make a mutually acceptable decision.
Integrative and Distributive Dimensions. It has been suggested by researchers that further insights into the five styles of handling interpersonal conflict may be obtained by organizing them according to the integrative and distributive dimensions of labor–management bargaining. The Dual-Concern Model shows the five styles of handling interpersonal conflict and their re-classifications into the problem solving and bargaining dimensions.
Source : The International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 2002, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 302–326
A MODEL OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: A STUDY IN SEVEN COUNTRIES, M. Afzalur Rahim, Center for Advanced Studies in Management, Clement Psenicka, Youngstown State University
The integrative dimension-Integrating style minus Avoiding style represents a party's concern (high–low) for self and others.
The distributive dimension-Dominating style minus Obliging style represents a party's concern (high–low) for self or others.
These two dimensions represent the problem solving and bargaining strategies for handling conflict, respectively. A problem solving strategy represents a party's pursuit of own and others' concerns, whereas the bargaining strategy represents a party's pursuit of own or others' concerns.
A High–High use of the problem solving strategy indicates attempts to increase the satisfaction of concerns of both parties by finding unique solutions to the problems acceptable to them.
A Low–Low use of this strategy indicates reduction of satisfaction of the concerns of both parties as a result of their failure to confront and solve their problems.
A High–Low use of the bargaining strategy indicates attempts to obtain high satisfaction of concerns of self and providing low satisfaction of concerns to others.
The integrative dimension—Integrating style minus Avoiding style represents a party's concern (high–low) for self and others.
The distributive dimension Dominating style minus Obliging style represents a party's concern (high–low) for self or others. These two dimensions represent the problem solving and bargaining strategies for handling conflict, respectively.
A problem solving strategy represents a party's pursuit of own and others' concerns, whereas the bargaining strategy represents a party's pursuit of own or others' concerns.
A High–High use of the problem solving strategy indicates attempts to increase the satisfaction of concerns of both parties by finding unique solutions to the problems acceptable to them. A Low–Low use of this strategy indicates reduction of satisfaction of the concerns of both parties as a result of their failure to confront and solve their problems. A High–Low use of the bargaining strategy indicates attempts to obtain high satisfaction of concerns of self and providing low satisfaction of concerns to others. A Low–High use of this strategy indicates attempts to obtain the opposite. A positive score in the problem solving scale indicates joint gains, but negative scores indicate losses for both parties. A positive score in the bargaining scale indicates one's gain, but loss to the other party. A negative score indicates one's loss, but gain to the other party. Compromising is the point of intersection of the two dimensions, that is, a middle ground position where a party has an intermediate level of concerns for own and others.
Literature on organizational conflict shows that integrating style is positively associated with individual and organizational outcomes.
In general, a confrontation (integrating) style was related to the effective management of conflict, while forcing (dominating) and withdrawing (avoiding) were related to the ineffective management of conflict. A confrontation style dealing with intergroup conflict was used to a significantly greater degree in higher than lower performing organizations. Emotionally intelligent employees are better able to negotiate and effectively handle their conflicts with organizational members. A recent study shows that a supervisor's referent power base was positively associated with subordinates' problem solving strategy, which in turn, was positively associated with their job performance. Referent power base was negatively associated with bargaining strategy, which in turn, was negatively but non significantly associated with job performance. It is suggested that a supervisor's motivation to enhance performance and goal attainment will encourage subordinates to use more problem solving strategy and less bargaining strategy in managing conflict.
By using their own emotional competencies managers can encourage subordinates to enhance their problem solving strategy. The perception of subordinates of their supervisors' use of these skills may have compound positive impact on the subordinates' problem solving strategy of managing conflict and job performance. Therefore, the challenge for a contemporary organization is to enhance the emotional intelligence of their managers. Managers may be trained to enhance their EQ so that their subordinates are encouraged to use more problem solving and less bargaining strategies of handling conflict. This will help the supervisors and subordinates to work together to attain goals. Improving managers' EQ would involve education and specific job-related training. Managers should also be encouraged to enhance their skills through continuous self-learning. Managers need emotional competence training which should "focus on the competencies needed most for excellence in a given job or role". Organizations should provide appropriate reinforcements for learning and improving employees' essential emotional competencies needed for specific jobs. Recent literature shows that learning organizations are providing ample opportunities to managers for continuous learning that should help to improve their EQ. Supervisors and employees should also be trained to use problem solving and generally not to engage in win−lose or bargaining strategy of handling conflict. To attain this goal, training in conflict management of employees and supervisors and appropriate changes in organization design and culture would be needed .
Education and training may be of limited value when it comes to improving supervisors' EQ. Organizations may have to adapt the policy of recruiting managers with vision and charisma who are likely to be high on EQ. There should also be appropriate changes in the organization design which would require creating flatter, decentralized, and less complex structures. Also there should be appropriate changes in organizational culture that provides rewards for learning new behaviors, ethics and morality, and continuous questioning and inquiry. These changes in the organization design and culture will encourage managers and employees to acquire competencies needed for improving their job performance and effectiveness.
No comments:
Post a Comment